Photos: Vancouver’s Japanese community under attack

Floyd Berrigan, accomplice of Robert Hughes in the Yoshi Uno killing, was already known to police when these photos were taken in 1940. He was 16 at the time.

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/ Library and Archives Canada

A scene on the gritty side of Vancouver...
/ pasttensevancouver.tumblr.com

Looking east from the corner of Pender and Richards, this was a familiar scene to the Hughes gang, who holed up at the Piccadilly Hotel one block west in a manner that scandalized the city...
/ pasttensevancouver.tumblr.com

Vancouver was transformed in early 1942 as a wartime shipbuilding boom brought in tens of thousands of new workers. The economy thrived but overcrowding drove many into miserable housing, leading to major changes in city life...
/ City of Vancouver archives

War meant shortages of rubber and gasoline, leading to crowded streetcars...
/ City of Vancouver archives.

Vancouver Alderman Halford Wilson says farewell to his parents before going off for Army training. He was one of the most strident voices to demand the removal of Japanese residents. In January 1942 he urged city council to revoke business permits of city businesses owned by Japanese who were not Canadian born or naturalized Canadians. Councillors rejected the idea. His father, pictured, was a clergyman and leader of anti-Japanese rhetoric..
/ City of Vancouver Archives.

Hughes gang member John Petryk was a shipyard worker on the north shore at the time of his arrest. The industry was undergoing a massive wartime boom in 1942 that transformed the city...
/ City of Vancouver archives

In this panorama shot from the roof of city hall, the lower Fairview area some knew as Kawamuko can be seen below...
/ City of Vancouver archives

Bruce Hutchison, editorial page editor of the Vancouver Sun in 1942. It was a moment when many voices, including the Sun's, pushed for treatment of Japanese Canadians that was seen as too harsh by some even at that stressful time...
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Roy Brown, editor of the Vancouver Sun in January 1942. It was a moment when many voices, including the Sun's, pushed for treatment of Japanese Canadians that was seen as too harsh by some even at that stressful time...
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In 1942 public officials responded to the Vancouver's housing crisis by acting to build new family housing. Houses at one development in North Vancouver was criticized for being too flimsily built. Possibly in response, publicity photos were issued demonstrating their many pleasing domestic features...
/ City of Vancouver archives

Yoshiyuki Uno. He was killed aged 27 in January 1942...
/ Uno family photo

Bobby Uno, right, the youngest Uno child, is seen with next door neighbour Sam Sugie. The younger boy befriended Bobby during the Uno boy's long convalescence at home recovering from the tuberculosis that crippled him...
/ Uno family photo

Vancouver had some 600 confectionary stores, and about 14 per cent were run by Japanese people. This example, like the Uno business, was typical in its layout and in having an attached residence for the owners...
/ City of Vancouver archives

A news report on the Uno murder...
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This front page of the Vancouver News-Herald (partially obscured in existing microfilm) shows what city readers woke up to the morning after the Uno slaying...
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News-Herald front page of January 17, 1942 showed closeup of floor at the Uno store where a set of scales fell to the floor as Yoshi Uno was shot...
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A news report on the Uno murder...
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A news report on the Uno murder...
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A news report on the Uno murder...
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Province front page of Jan. 17 1942, the day after the murder...
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George Chapman, owner of a confectionary store located around the corner from the family home of killer Robert Hughes, was the first target of night of crime. In this Province newspaper photo, he shows where a bullet smashed a bottle of Orange Crush...
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Article in The Province, April 1942, with mug shots of the four accused in the Yoshiyuki Uno slaying case...
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Robert Hughes is shown at age 18, two years before the Uno slaying. Library and Archives Canada...
/ Library and Archives Canada

Accused Robert Hughes fingerprints file after the first trial...
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Accused Robert Hughes fingerprints file after the first trial...
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The first Vancouver Sun of the new year on the topic of Japanese offered suggestions to the federal government just as crucial decisions were being considered. The Sun proved to be a most influential voice...
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Yoshiyuki Uno...
/ Uno family photo

It would be no hardship on Japanese Canadians to be sent away from Vancouver, argued this Jan. 5 editorial. In the days ahead, petty crimes against local Japanese shopkeepers escalated. When Yoshiyuki Uno was murdered on Jan. 17, a connection was immediately made by some...
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Kosaburo Uno photographed close to the family store at 4th and Alberta, probably around 1940...
/ Uno family photo

Shaken by Japanese military conquests on the other side of the Pacific, and by the attack on Pearl Harbour in Hawaii, many voices in Vancouver in January 1942 were calling for decisive action against local Japanese. At the time of this Jan. 8 editorial, a delegation from B.C. was in Ottawa demanding immediate measures. Finally on Jan. 14, those demands were partially met...
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It would be no hardship on Japanese Canadians to be sent away from Vancouver, argued this Jan. 5 editorial. In the days ahead, petty crimes against local Japanese shopkeepers escalated. When Yoshiyuki Uno was murdered on Jan. 17, a connection was immediately made by some...
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